Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers dies at 74 — This post has been updated. See note below for details. — Phil Everly, who with his brother, Don, made up the most revered vocal duo of the rock-music era, their exquisite harmonies profoundly influencing the Beatles, the Beach Boys …

Is the NSA Spying on Congress? — U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today asked the National Security Agency director whether the agency has monitored the phone calls, emails and Internet traffic of members of Congress and other elected officials. — “Has the NSA spied, or is the NSA currently spying …

Degrees of Value: Making College Pay Off — For Too Many Americans, College Today Isn't Worth It … In the field of higher education, reality is outrunning parody. A recent feature on the satire website the Onion proclaimed, “30-Year-Old Has Earned $11 More Than He Would Have Without College Education.”

Why Snowden Won't (and Shouldn't) Get Clemency — He went too far to be considered just a whistleblower. — I regard Daniel Ellsberg as an American patriot. I was one of the first columnists to write that Director of National Intelligence James Clapper should be fired for lying to Congress.

I, Like David Brooks, Have Smoked Marijuana — In order to comment on the marijuana legalization debate, it is apparently necessary to confess to your own history of pot-smoking first, so here goes: While in college, I experimented with marijuana. To be precise, I conducted 132 experiments with marijuana.

Political palliatives won't cure ObamaCare's ills. — While we were away, the Department of Health and Human Services offered what might be termed a concession to reality. In a Dec. 19 letter, Secretary Kathleen Sebelius informed Virginia's Mark Warner and five other members …

IMF Says: By the Way, There's a Debt Crisis — Two summers ago, we ran the Power Line Prize contest to try to focus attention on the exploding national debt. The contest was successful, in that it incentivized the production of many high-quality videos, songs, pictures …

Teens in Muslim garb try, fail to rob gun shop — MOST TEENAGERS do dumb things. But not trying-to-rob-Joe-Galiano dumb. — Galiano is the owner of Suburban Armory, the gun shop on MacDade Boulevard in Collingdale, Delaware County. There is a giant gun-shaped sign on the roof.

Utah man fasting to stop same sex marriages — SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 Utah) - A Utah man is vowing to go without any food until the state stops allowing same sex marriages. He claims if Utah wants to protect traditional marriage, it has an option it's not using, and he's fasting until it does it.

Administration faces tough fight on contraception cases — As a new round of religion-based challenges to President Barack Obama's health care law head to the Supreme Court, advocates on both sides of the issue say the administration's arguments are likely facing a chilly reception.

Rude and Crude: Why MSNBC keeps getting into trouble — Is there something in the water over at 30 Rock? — Whether you love or detest MSNBC, the network has had a rough few months, and I'm wondering whether a series of embarrassing episodes is more than a coincidence.

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